


Devil's On Your Back

by pathstotread



Category: Nikita (TV 2010)
Genre: AU, F/F, Gen, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathstotread/pseuds/pathstotread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm not going to hug you," Jaden warns. "So we might as well go dance." After Alex breaks from Team Nikita, she and Jaden go on a date. Sort of. AU after "Glass Houses".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's On Your Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



> I was psyched to get matched with a Nikita request, as it gave me the perfect excuse to rewatch season 1. I'm afraid this turned into something different than I'd intended. When I first decided to do a "Jaden lives" AU, I envisioned something a bit darker and plottier. But this is what happened instead. I hope it pleases you, V, and Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Title taken from "Shake It Out" by Florence + The Machine.

Alex thinks she'd probably like Chicago, if she were here under any different circumstances. As it is, Amanda has her running recon on a target, which is simultaneously boring and frustrating, made even more so by the well-armed babysitters Alex is pretty sure she's not supposed to notice - funded by Division or Oversight, she's not sure which. She's managed to shake them for the moment, ducking into a club that's a confusing hybrid of a dive bar and a dance hall, but she's under no delusions that her freedom will last long.

Even when she'd been at her most strung out, alcohol had never been one of her weaknesses. Since she's been clean, she hasn't even missed it. But it's been a rough couple of weeks, and she can't pretend that drowning the memory of them in a fifth of Jack Daniels isn't an appealing thought. She's staring at the drink that the bartender has just poured for her when she hears a voice next to her say, "You going to drink that?"

"Was thinking about it," Alex says honestly, giving the short black straw in her glass a quick stir.

Jaden reaches across Alex, grabs the glass, and knocks it back in one. When Alex glares at her, Jaden says, "Wouldn't want Ms. Clean and Sober messing up her recovery."

"Screw you," Alex says bitingly.

"And as fun as _that_ sounds, I've got a better idea." And just like that, Jaden grabs her hand like they're nothing more than two girlfriends looking for a good time on a Saturday night, like they've never tried to beat the life out of each other.

-

 _"Nikita? I need your help. It's Jaden, she's -"_

 _"Alex, take a breath. What happened?"_

 _"She heard me and Nathan arguing and got suspicious, said she was going to call in a security breach. We started fighting and Nathan shoved her, slammed her head against the wall. She's unconscious, but that won't last long."_

 _Alex heard Nikita let out a long exhale. "Okay. We can't bring her here until we disable her tracker. Can you get her out back? I'll call Michael on the way."_

 _Alex nodded, then realized Nikita couldn't see her on the phone. "Okay."_

 _"We'll work it out. We can fake some intel saying I was coming after you and she got caught in the crossfire."_

 _"Nikita, she has an implant like mine, in the back of her neck."_

 _There's a long pause, and then, "We'll work it out."_

-

Alex snatches her arm away before Jaden can drag her more than a few feet from the bar. "What the hell, Jaden. Is this some Nikita mission?"

Jaden scoffs. "Nikita doesn't know I'm here, so stand down." At Alex's continued glare, she tosses her hair over one shoulder and says, "Damn, at least _she_ gives off the vibe that she's had a good time at some point in the last decade." She gives Alex a pointed look that clearly reads _unlike some people I could mention._ "Even heard her make a joke last week."

Despite herself, a sense of longing shoots through Alex at the thought of Nikita's dark sense of humor. "Sometimes I think she plans her quips in advance," she mutters.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Jaden agrees.

Crossing her arms defensively across her chest, Alex sighs, "So this is about what, exactly?" She isn't sure what she expects, if Jaden isn't making the usual rounds as Nikita's new right hand woman. They haven't seen each other since the night everything went to hell, but Alex has heard chatter that Jaden and Nikita have been spotted together at various locations around the country, generally acting as professional thorns in Division's side.

"Right now? I was thinking about dancing."

She hadn't expected that.

"Dancing," Alex repeats flatly.

Stepping in close so that only Alex can hear, Jaden says, "Well, I thought about picking up where we left off that time your boyfriend bashed my head in, but that seemed like it might get one or both of us arrested and probably land me back in Amanda's little shop of horrors. So I'd rather not."

"Jaden - about that."

Jaden holds up a hand. "Sorry. Reflex bitch moment." She lets out a small sigh. "I got word that you were in the city, but I didn't come looking for a fight. It just...still feels like we should be at each other's throats, I guess."

Alex gives a short nod. "Yeah. But the funny thing is, half the reason I ever picked fights with you was to create a distraction."

"Yeah, that thought's crossed my mind a bit since I've been out." Jaden shrugs. "Me, I just picked fights with you because I felt like it."

A laugh escapes Alex's mouth unheeded. She knows that isn't true; she's betting Jaden has reasons for everything she does, including those Alex knows about - Thom, for one - and those she doesn't. But she accepts the statement in the manner it's given.

"I'm not going to hug you," Jaden warns. "So we might as well go dance."

Failing to find the flaw in that logic, Alex simply says, "Fair enough," and lets Jaden reclaim her hand and lead her through the crush of people to the center of the floor.

-

They dance the way they fight; they might as well be back on the mats in the training room. They circle each other as if looking for the upper hand, attracting attention because they're even better at that than they are at covert ops. There isn't much physical contact - a grab of a hand here, a touch of a hip there - but the atmosphere feels charged enough without it. Guys weave around them, putting their hands in places they wouldn't dare if they knew what was good for them, but their wrists remain unbroken because Alex can't be bothered. This - whatever _this_ is - has nothing to do with them.

A few of the braver ones periodically buy them shots, which Jaden downs with ease. Watching Jaden toss her head back, Alex swears she can feel the buzz as if she's taken the shot herself, and she's struck with an odd feeling of déjà vu. They aren't friends, not even close, but for the first time since they met, Alex thinks that in one of Birkhoff's alternate timelines, they might have been. Somewhere in time, something tells her that Alternate Alex and Alternate Jaden are having a hell of a good night.

She closes her eyes and lifts her arms over her head, feeling the thrum of the bass traveling up from the balls of her feet. She's loved music since before she can remember, lying in bed at night with the staticky noise from her radio lulling her to sleep; sure, Papa had taken that away, but he'd never known about the iPod under the bed.

There had been a lot of things she liked about Nathan, but she admits that his music collection had been at the top of the list. Even that hadn't been enough, in the end; he'd represented normality and hope for the future and she knows now that she can't afford any of that. She'd cared enough to make sure he'd gotten out of town, but missing him doesn't exactly keep her up at night. Not that she sleeps much at all, these days.

Jaden stumbles slightly after a shot of Patron, which could be chalked up to clumsiness if she were a person who hadn't had clumsiness trained out of her, literally upon pain of death. "Come on," Alex says, her hand on Jaden's elbow. Jaden leans into Alex's side, just a slight press of skin on skin, as Alex leads them over to a circular booth in the corner.

They slide in, Jaden angling herself to face Alex as they settle in. "Admit it, that wasn't so bad."

"No," Alex says honestly. "It wasn't."

"But?" Jaden leans her arm against the back of the booth, giving Alex an arch look.

"But I still don't know what your game is."

Jaden laughs, a short bark of amusement, and it occurs to Alex that it's probably the first time she's ever heard Jaden laugh, much less been the cause of it. " _My_ game? Coming from you, that is hysterical."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"Riddle me this. Six months ago, you were risking your life to get even one step ahead of Division. If I'd known it then, I would have given you up in an instant. Now I'm on the run, you're free, and you're still working for them. That doesn't seem at all weird to you?"

"I'm not working for them. I'm a free agent, with my own mission. Amanda is just providing me with resources I can't get on my own."

"And all she wants in return is your soul, am I right?"

 _Don't have much of one left_ , Alex thinks, but stays silent.

"Amanda," Jaden says with a sneer. "She always did run that place. I think Percy was the only one who didn't know it."

Thinking of the Engineer, and of the swag Percy has negotiated in the few short weeks he's been imprisoned, Alex simply says, "I wouldn't count Percy out just yet. Besides, Amanda has some Boy Scout from Oversight watching us like a hawk."

"Now _that_ sounds like Nikita. ‘Men just get in the way,'" Jaden says in a mocking impression of Nikita.

"Sounds about right."

"Me, I wouldn't mind so much, as long as they knew when to get out of it." Her eyes darkening slightly, Jaden continues quietly, "But most guys don't."

Alex had had entirely too much on her mind to go snooping around the recruits' files when she was at Division, unlike Jaden, who'd pegged her as a murderous drug addict from day one. Watching Jaden with Kalume in Switzerland had been the first and only time Alex had gotten any insight about Jaden's past, the path that had led her to Division. The man who hadn't known when to get out of her way. Knowing she wouldn't be doing their tentative truce any favors by bringing that up, Alex settles for saying, "so it's still all ‘one woman army' with her, huh?"

Jaden shrugs, her quick glance acknowledging the change of subject. "Birkhoff and Owen are around, and Michael's God-knows-where doing God-knows-what, but mostly, yeah. You should see Birkhoff's place, though. He may be a basement-dwelling nerd, but he's a basement-dwelling nerd with some serious scratch."

Knowing what she does about his Shadow Walker past, Alex can completely believe it. "Hey," she says as something occurs to her, "how did she deactivate your kill chip?"

"Forced cardiac arrest and adrenalin to the heart. I don't recommend it," Jaden says darkly. "I woke up cuffed to the bed with her waving veggie smoothies in my face, my chest on fire and my ears ringing because she'd fried my cochlear implants, too. And when I screamed that Division would find me, she just laughed and said, ‘honey, you're not the first of Division's best and brightest that I've had cuffed to a bed, and I'm betting you won't be the last.' She made it pretty clear that she'd kill me before she let me go running back to them."

Alex furrows her brow in confusion. "But she could have gotten you out, like Sara. What are you still doing here? Don't tell me you buy into Nikita's manifesto."

"Hell, no. I don't give a shit about Nikita's mission, though I can't say I mind the idea of destroying the sons of bitches who would have canceled me without a moment's thought. But I'm not in it for revenge."

 _That makes one of us_.

"Look, I know I'm just the newest member of the Nikita Meers Support Group for Wayward Female Assassins, but as far as I can tell, Sara didn't know shit about what was really going on. She didn't know you were the mole, that you were the one who saved her ass." Jaden's eyes connect with Alex's for a brief moment. "Just like you saved mine, in Switzerland."

"And then I almost got you killed. You've still got a target on your back because of me."

"And I blew your cover without knowing it, so we're even on that score. That's not the point."

"Then what's the point?" Alex asks.

"Usually when I ask Nikita what went down with you two, she mumbles something about giving you space to make your own decisions and then goes off to sharpen her knives. But she did tell me that you gave up your chance to get out when you chose not to blow that lab, and I know that was because of me."

Before Alex can begin to process what sounds remarkably like gratitude coming from the last person she'd ever expected, Jaden abruptly says, "Anyway. You and Nikita. You stop taking the blue pill, or what?"

Alex shakes her head. "It's complicated." _She killed my Papa_ , she thinks, but can't bring herself to say it. Nikita hadn't been to blame for that, any more than Owen was to blame for Daniel's death. Certainly not as responsible as Alex was for the blood on her own hands.

"This mission of yours have anything to do with what's so complicated?"

Alex starts to answer, not entirely sure of what she's going to say, when two men across the room catch her eye. "Jaden," she says, careful not to change her expression. "10 o'clock."

"Motherfucker," Jaden swears as she spots the agents, who give no impression of having also spotted them. "You know they're looking for you, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm not the one they've been ordered to shoot on sight," Alex hisses. "You have to go. Now. There's a back exit ten paces to the left."

They both stand, leaning on each other and laughing artificially as they weave to the door, selling the lie of two tipsy coeds going for a smoke. When they duck into the shallow alcove housing the exit, Jaden makes to open the door, then turns and says, "What the hell, right?" and kisses Alex, hard and fast. "You know where I'll be," she says, disappearing into the humid summer night.

Alex licks her top lip, catching a hint of tequila. As she heads back to the bar, preparing to be apprehended accidentally-on-purpose by her babysitters, she thinks of explaining to the Oversight committee that she's been on a sort-of date with one of Nikita's known associates.

The image of Amanda's face is enough to keep her smiling, just slightly, when the boys in suits sidle up next to her at the bar.

 _end_


End file.
